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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22403080">should have known better</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/rain_at_dawn/pseuds/rain_at_dawn'>rain_at_dawn</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>stars, scattered [5]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>SHINee</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Getting Back Together, M/M, Past Relationship(s), Single Parents, non-celebrity AU</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-01-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-01-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 11:15:43</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>996</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22403080</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/rain_at_dawn/pseuds/rain_at_dawn</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Frightened by my feelings<br/>I only wanna be a relief</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Kim Jonghyun/Lee Jinki | Onew</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>stars, scattered [5]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1608877</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>21</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>should have known better</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>prompted by @loml5HINeekjh on Twitter</p>
<p>song inspo - should have known better by sufjan stevens</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“You already know?”</p>
<p>Of course he does. Jonghyun had known what it would be about before his sister called him. Out of everyone he’d grown up with, Sodam was the only one privy to his teenage heartbreaks.</p>
<p>“Yeah. Lee Jinki.”</p>
<p>Is back in town. Has a kid. No wife or girlfriend in sight.</p>
<p>“How do you feel?” Sodam gives him time to process, waiting it out until he can come to his own conclusion. She’s really a blessing.</p>
<p>“I don’t know.”</p>
<p>“That’s okay.”</p>
<p>“Can I talk to you later? This might take a while.”</p>
<p>“Of course.”</p>
<p>After she hangs up, Jonghyun leans back in the chair in his home-office and figures he’s long due for a good round of procrastination.</p>
<p>He should’ve seen this coming; there had been a foreshadowing with the local radio station playing Lee Moonse and the nation-wide search for a trot superstar amping up its advertising on each TV spot that came up. These were things he wouldn’t have laughed at with anyone but Jinki, in a time and place that felt completely separate from his one-room studio, complete with one dog and no kids.</p>
<p>
  <em>“Saw you in a dream once.”</em>
</p>
<p><em>“Then keep sleeping.”</em> Jonghyun had once retorted, eighteen years old, brimming with ill-directed confidence and good spirits. Jinki hadn’t seemed to mind that response and just took it with a smile like he always did with stuff from Jonghyun: like snacks, homework brought from school when he was sick, Jonghyun’s tears and rants after break-ups. As well as Jonghyun’s own rejections.</p>
<hr/>
<p>Until they made out in the high-school hallway, between the vending machine and fire alarm, second floor, two minutes’ walk from home-room.</p>
<p>Jonghyun remembers Jinki pressed up against the wall, at first too stiff when their lips connected, then too loose and quivering when it all went to tongues. Too much hormones and not enough finesse is what Jonghyun puts it down to, later on.</p>
<p>They hadn’t talked about it all since then, definitely not during the ten years that had passed since they’d graduated and Jinki moved away for college. Jonghyun had tried that route too, only to drop during freshman year when he grew tired of term papers and exams.</p>
<p>He’d set out to do what he loved and when he couldn’t get to whom he loved, it all became fodder for inspiration: notes in his journals and compositions, the skeletons laid bare in lyric sheets, the name hidden between the words of his songs.</p>
<p>He’d had plenty of dreams. Sometimes, the ones about Jinki’s smile are the ones that make it into his albums. Sometimes, people like them well enough to request them on the radio.</p>
<p>Jonghyun had never wondered if Jinki had heard any of them, until the day Sodam calls him and now, ten years later, it’s all he can think of, while trying to take in the fact that Jinki has baggage of his own, things that tie him down to a life that had long been lived without him.</p>
<hr/>
<p>There are plenty of kids that live in the suburbs where his mother’s house still stands. Jonghyun knows this, but still looks out for one with Jinki’s smile, the exact wide, toothy exuberance that shaped his mood, and in turn Jonghyun’s mood.</p>
<p>It turns out his mom is still friends with Jinki’s mom and it’s not long before he’s presented with a picture of the prodigious grandson. The kid was certainly unplanned for and the mother has been off the scene since he was barely a few months old, what a pity for sure. Jonghyun’s eyes meet his mother’s over the photo album and she arches her eyebrows in the way that she does when she used to catch him reaching into the cookie jar before breakfast.</p>
<p>“My son has been too busy to even look at any of the girls in the neighborhood.” Jinki’s mother laments as she sets down the tray of tea and snacks on the coffee table. “He’s never had much luck with them, not even in school. I’m sure your Jonghyun has never had such a problem.”</p>
<p>Jonghyun’s mother – and he feels a smidgeon of guilt knowing what they both know – smiles and nods, sipping from her cup.</p>
<p>All Jonghyun suddenly wants is to leave the past they’d built and go back to create a whole new one in which he kisses Jinki again after leaving the hallway, instead of leaving him hanging, slumped against the wall.</p>
<p>He takes a sip of his own tea, glad to find that it’s scorching.</p>
<hr/>
<p>The next time the ahjusshis get off their lawn chairs and throw a barbeque party for the entire block, Jonghyun makes sure to bring Roo with him.</p>
<p>There are plenty of kids in the neighborhood, but only one that wants to approach a shy beagle; coincidentally, it’s the boy with only a father around to keep an eye on him as he scratches behind Roo’s ears. The boy’s father eyes Jonghyun too and Jonghyun finds that whatever rash streak of impulse which had led him here fades under that familiar longing gaze.</p>
<p>“So what’s your name?” He asks the boy instead, not expecting anything at all in return. True to inherited nature, the boy just smiles shyly and looks to his father for support.</p>
<p>“Same as yours.” Jinki says.</p>
<p>The only thing that keeps Jonghyun rooted to the spot is Roo deciding to set her rear on the exact patch of grass his namesake stands on, looking down at his bright blue plastic slippers. Jinki walks up to them slowly and places his hands on his son’s shoulders. He smiles, but it’s muted behind his lips and Jonghyun’s already waging another song on it.</p>
<p>“Uh… you wanna go catch up somewhere?”</p>
<p>A hand ruffles the boy’s head. “Only if Jjong can come too.”</p>
<p>Something tickles Jonghyun inside when he holds out a hand for the smaller one to latch onto. “Of course he can.”</p>
<p>They leave together, hand-in-hand.</p>
<p>   </p>
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